The Cardinal Way Part 2: Ascension

[royals19]

Quote: Originally Posted by Frank is the Tank

I really like this so far! Although... HOW COULD YOU TAKE ELLSBURY AND TANAKA AWAY FROM THE YANKEES!

Woah! Where did you come from!? It's great to see you back around here dude! You picked a great time to come back with all the dynasties starting to kick up again.

With that being said, don't even get me started on the Yankees man haha.

[royals19]

When you first show up to Spring Training, you think to yourself: "Man, I wish I could play every game here!" and rightfully so. Who doesn't want to go boating and watch the palm trees sway everyday?

But as the spring goes on, you begin to realize why you have this burden so much.

I can only take so many games at the Cardinals' Country club here in Jupiter.

I can only take so many "B" games where both teams run out a collection of minor leaguers that probably won't even smell the show this season.

I can only take so much of this crap *** weather that always shows up the last week. Back in Arizona, my previous franchises never had to deal with monsoons and hurricanes but I guess you have to pay a price for playing at the beach.

Let's get this over with and move on to a little bit of live action; shall we?

Just like in the first part of Spring Training, there were some critical observations that we made.

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Shelby Miller might be a candidate for Cy Young this year. I know that might be exaggerating things but we gave him starts against Boston, New York (Yankees that is) and the Atlanta Braves in the last 2 weeks of Spring Training and he allowed a grand total of 2 runs while striking out 23. He sits about 91-92 early in the count and then dials it up to 97-99 when he gets 2 strikes. I know that it's Spring Training but all the pieces are coming together. Watch out for him.

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Hey! Look who it is! Jason Motte! ...What? You don't remember? Ugh... Look him up, I don't have time to explain this. Motte was impressive this spring. He's about 92-93 comfortably but the command on his cutter is spotty at best. We weren't expecting him to break camp with the squad and we had him on a 15 pitch pitch count all spring. Motte will be assigned to AA and will throw there for about half of April before being sent to AAA where he'll throw until Mid-Late May and then we'll bring him back up.

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Heh... Now this is a Willie Singleton type of guy. Randall "Yeah, I was the dude selected before Mike Trout" Grichuk is no slouch. People think that because he was selected before Mike Trout that he was a scrub... that's only partially true. Grichuk certainly is no Mike Trout but this kid is an awesome prospect. I was expecting a fairly underwhelming performance but he came into camp and probably would've made the roster if we weren't already set out there. Grichuk is going to be a guy to watch out for folks. You don't just come into Spring Training, hit .300 with 8 bombs and then fall of the map...

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Lastly, we've got an issue here with Matt Adams. This kid is probably our best power threat but we don't have a spot for him in the lineup. This spring we explored a variety of options to get him in the lineup. He's going to be playing 1st base, 3rd base and left field every time there's an opportunity. I'm just hoping that he doesn't play left field too often because he looks like an offensive lineman trying to play soccer out there...

[Frank is the Tank]

Quote: Originally Posted by royals19

Woah! Where did you come from!? It's great to see you back around here dude! You picked a great time to come back with all the dynasties starting to kick up again. With that being said, don't even get me started on the Yankees man haha.

Just wanted to stop by the neighborhood haha! I got back home from college last week, so I got more free time. I'm glad I arrived at the best time of the year!

It's already started.. The Yanks are not one to be messed with.

[lilbiggio]

Masahiro may not can give you the finger on a daily basis, but don't worry, with that rotation you will probably see him in the playoffs. I'm putting house money down right now that by winning that sweepstakes, they have punched their ticket from the NL East..

[royals19]

Quote: Originally Posted by Frank is the Tank

Just wanted to stop by the neighborhood haha! I got back home from college last week, so I got more free time. I'm glad I arrived at the best time of the year! It's already started.. The Yanks are not one to be messed with.

Spoiler

Quote: Originally Posted by lilbiggio

Masahiro may not can give you the finger on a daily basis, but don't worry, with that rotation you will probably see him in the playoffs. I'm putting house money down right now that by winning that sweepstakes, they have punched their ticket from the NL East..

Oh yeah, the NL East is about to get real interesting. The Braves are awesome, the Nationals have a decent squad and the Marlins are supposedly decent as well. With that being said, now that the Phillies are once again decent, it makes baseball that much better. There's going to be 3 division winners but winning the Wild Card just got that much tougher. There's now at least 3 teams out of first in each division that can compete for the Wild Card.

I agree though, Philly is going to be scary good this season.

[Frank is the Tank]

I guess that since we've been companions for quite sometime, I'll let it slide.

How is ST for the Cards so far?

[royals19]

With Spring Training out of the way, we can finally get to all that Opening Day has to offer on this version of the show. But before we can get there, we have to take a look at how the 25 man roster that Willie Singleton will be rolling out in his debut season.

LINEUP

Overall, the lineup wasn't that hard to configure. All the starters were pretty much given coming into camp. Compared to last year, I'd say there were a lot more threats. Jacoby Ellsbury now sits atop our lineup and gives us a dynamic speed-bat combo at the top of the order. Jhonny Peralta sits in the heart of the order with Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina. Molina and Holliday struggled offensively for much of last season and only got it going in late August. Hopefully the addition of Peralta will mean more production there in that part of the lineup that seemed to be a black hole last season. At the bottom, you'll notice that we've got Oscar "The most hyped player in the short history of this dynasty" Taveras and Kolten "I used to have an 80 OVR but now I have a 68 OVR" Wong hitting before the pitcher's spot. We've got the Rooks down there in order to get them going and give them a little bit of protection in the lineup.

Overall, 1-9 is pretty solid. We just need our power bats to get their stuff together and drive in runs this season. Our bench has Matt Adams, Tony Cruz, Jon Jay and Mark Ellis. Notably absent is Daniel Descalso who was forced to move to AAA after hitting .303 last season as a starter at second base. That just goes to show that roster cuts can sometime be a cruel mistress to those who've got jobs on the line.

PITCHING

Again, pitching is our strength this season. After coming out of literally nowhere last season and dominating the postseason, Michael Wacha enters the year as our #2 starter behind Wainwright. Behind him, we've got Garcia and Lynn who are both looking for bounce back years after underwhelming performances this season. In the 4th spot though is the guy to watch: Shelby Miller. He was incredible this spring and after the way he threw last season, there's no reason to believe that he won't get even better.

The bullpen is equally loaded. We've got Joe Kelly working as the long man and he's essentially the equivalent to a 6th man in basketball at this point after dominating the postseason last year. Looking at all the arms, it's certainly a colorful mix. We've got a bunch of guys who throw from a wide variety of arm angles. We've got a left handed submariner, a right hander who throws from the hip, a right hander and a left hander who throw from a low 3 quarters, a left hander and a right hander who throw right over the top and a flamethrowing closer who's untouchable.

Looking at the roster from top to bottom, this team is going to be very, very, very good. I don't think that it's going to be a problem making the postseason this year but then again, I felt the same way last season.

The player I really want to focus on though is Oscar Taveras. Expectations for this kid are through the roof, after all he destroyed AAA pitching and started doing crazy, Bo Jackson-esque things when he ran out of stuff to do in AAA. The rise of Taveras will be well chronicled through the pages of this year's thread and probably beyond. He came into spring and while he didn't hit .340, he mashed Grapefruit league pitching every time he stepped into the batters box.
First it was Stan Musial. Then it was Lou Brock. Eventually the torch was passed on to Jim Edmonds... And now...

it's Oscar Taveras' turn.

[royals19]

Quote: Originally Posted by Frank is the Tank

I guess that since we've been companions for quite sometime, I'll let it slide. How is ST for the Cards so far?

Well, it was pretty darn good. There weren't really any big time storylines coming out of camp because we pretty much had all of the positions locked up. Joel Hanrahan and Jason Motte looked really good in limited action. They'll definitely help the club out this season. As far as minor league guys goes, Oscar Taveras pretty much stole the show with his unbelievable skill set. Aside from him though, Kolten Wong was interesting and we're gonna give him a try at second this year and see how he does. Randall Grichuk was also pretty impressive too although I'm not quite sure where he fits into our current outfield situation. With all the additions, I think this team is even better than last year's World Series' winning squad.